Windows Phone Joins iOS And Android As Instagram-Friendly

Instagram, a Facebook-owned photo-sharing app that got its start on iOS and was later added to Android, is making a new home for itself on Windows Phone, the three-year-old company said today in an official blog.

Instagram grew to 30 million users on just the iOS platform before the company released an Android version in March of last year. The blog post says the Instagram community now exceeds 150 million people worldwide. Windows Phone is now a large enough user base for Instagram to find the platform worth developing for.

In the third quarter of 2013, Windows Phone accounted for less than five percent of the overall smartphone market, according to a recent report from research firm IDC. Still, several sources note that Windows Phone numbers over 150 million users.

“In the past year, however, Instagram isn’t all that’s grown. We’ve also seen the rise of a new mobile platform as tens of millions of people around the world have taken to Windows Phones. Our mission is to give everyone the ability to capture and share the moments around them, so our team has been working hard to bring Instagram to Windows Phone users everywhere,” the post said.

In order to bring the app to market quickly, Instagram has released a version that addresses Instagram’s core features. However some developments will have to be addressed in future updates. The newly released Instagram for Windows Phone does not include the ability to upload video, according to a report from The Verge.

“We’re not finished, and our team will continue developing the Windows Phone app to keep releasing features and bringing you the best Instagram possible,” the blog post on Instagram said.

The Verge reports that the initial Windows Phone version of the app is stripped down and users will be unable to tag people in photos or view maps from geotagged photos. However users who find they are tagged in a photo are able to “untag” themselves from the Windows Phone app.

Uploading photos also involves extra steps. Users take a photo, which goes to the camera roll before it is able to be posted to the Instagram feed, ReadWriteWeb reports.

“The app brings users to the external, Windows Phone-native camera as opposed to an Instagram camera, but most people won’t notice as it brings you straight back to the app with the photo you have taken ready to crop and add filters to,” ReadWriteWeb’s Selena Larson wrote.

It’s possible that routing to the camera roll is natural for most Instagram users anyway. “Most people upload photos from their camera roll, so with the beta version of the Windows Phone, we’re starting with the experience most people already use,” ReadWriteWeb quoted a spokesman from Instagram as saying.

A lack of more popular apps such as Instagram and Snapchat has been a pain point for Microsoft’s Windows Phone, and has likely held back adoption rates.

“Having Instagram is hugely symbolic,” Fast Company quoted Microsoft GM Casey McGee as saying. “We really feel like we’re turning the corner — that we’ve got that critical mass of applications that people want, which will encourage people to take a second look [at us].”